Clara and her Mother
by An Angels Tear
Summary: A quick oneshot about Clara when she's sixteen dealing with her mum being diagnosed with terminal cancer, how she deals with her mothers death and how she goes off the rails in the next few months. Warning, hints of alcohol and drug use, and very light hint at suicide.


**So this idea took over my head and I wrote it in an energy spurt at midnight, so sorry if it's not that good, but it wouldn't leave my head so I had to write it. Hope you all enjoy it, don't forget to review!**

**-An Angels Tear**

Clara strolled home from school, plugging her music in after waving goodbye to a few of her mates, nodding her head in time to the music slightly. She smiled. Today had been a good day. She had found out she had gotten an A in her Maths and English GCSE tests, and finally stood up to that annoying twat in her History class.

She walked up the path to her house whistling, rummaging for her keys in her bag and pulling them out after a quick search, unlocking the front door. "I'm home!" she called out, waiting for a response. When none came, she shrugged her shoulders and headed up to her room.

It wasn't unusual for both her parents to be out when she got home from school, so she got on with her usual routine. Throw her bag in her room, get changed into something comfier, a pair of joggers and a t-shirt, pad downstairs and rummage in the fridge for something and check for any mail, missed calls or notes. Two envelopes addressed to her, both from the bank. She tucked them under her arm and looked in the kitchen for a note.

Scrawled hastily on a torn piece of paper in her fathers hand writing were the words "_Had to go for an appointment at the hospital with your mum, hopefully be back in time for dinner, if not there's £10 for food in our room. Love Mum and Dad x_"

Clara looked at the note, a tad confused, though there was a slight smile on her face at the kiss on the paper. She loved her parents with all her heart, and always appreciated the little signs of love they showed her.

She went upstairs and found the money in her mum and dads room, heading to her own and placing it on the side. She got on with her homework, and soon 6:00pm rolled around. Her parents still weren't home, which worried her slightly, but she knew if they were together and at the hospital then they were safe.

She ordered a pizza and munched on it while completing her homework, still nibbling on it when she had finished her homework and began to doodle something she had heard earlier in the day, that had caught her attention. "I don't get algebra, but I don't get life at all." She wrote it in swirling letters, and as the minutes wore on the letters were joined by random bits of algebra and colours cascaded across the paper, and by the time the clock hit 8:00pm she had finished her drawing, and sat back looking at it proudly.

She heard the rattle of keys in the door and sprung up, rushing downstairs to greet her parents. "Hey Mum, Dad! How was the appointment?" They looked at her with red eyes, and pale faces. Clara was immediately worried. "Mum?"

Clara screamed and yelled and cried, shaking her head and refusing to believe it. It couldn't be true, this could never happen to her mum, never. But they showed her the letter, and the bottom of her world dropped out from beneath her. Ellie Oswald had terminal cancer, with only weeks left to live.

Clara sobbed for hours that night, long after her parents had stopped comforting her and told her to get some sleep, that it would all look better in the morning. But how could it? Her mum was dying, and her world was crashing down around her. She supposed she could be grateful of the timing, after she had done all of her exams.

She didn't go into school for the rest of the week, instead spending as much time with her mum as possible. The next week she went in, but only for specific lessons. Her dad worked less now, only for a few hours a day, his boss being very understanding of the situation along with the school. She stopped talking to a lot of her friends, constantly feeling like she was about to burst into tears, voice either monotone or cracking whenever she spoke to anyone who wasn't her parents.

The day Ellie Oswald passed away was the very last day she made a soufflé. She was trying to teach Clara how to make them, giving her the recipe to keep, and saying 11 important words that Clara would remember for the rest of her life. "The soufflé is not the soufflé. The soufflé is the recipe." She had made 3 soufflés that day, one for them to eat and two to go in the fridge. Clara had to throw them away after a while, unable to eat them because she wanted to keep their perfection.

That day Clara cried and cried and cried, rocking with her mother in her arms. Her dad sat their with silent tears sliding down his cheeks. Clara cried for 3 days straight after, and cried herself to sleep for 3 years after.

The funeral was a hard affair. Relatives she didn't even know appeared and all gave their condolences, and all Clara wanted to do was scream, because how could they know her pain? The pain of losing the one person she trusted the most, the one person she talked to, the one who always looked after her, and cuddled her, and baked soufflés with her.

She stood at her grave with her dad on her mothers birthday in her red coat, clutching the book her mum gave her when she was a child, '101 Places to See', her dad stood beside her with his silver hair and a dead look in his eyes, black coat wrapped tightly around him as he wrapped his arm around Clara's shoulders in a similar fashion.

Clara quickly went off the rails after the funeral, unable to deal with the loss of her mother and the pain of her father, who was numb, drinking his nights away and barely fluttered an eyelash when she screamed at him to do something.

It enabled her to get away with many things. She got a fake ID and went out drinking most nights, skiving off school, sometimes going back with a bloke she didn't even know, too intoxicated to care. She smoked and took drugs, and stole her fathers care and crashed it into a tree. She got sobered up in hospital, but as soon as she left she was quickly on the booze again.

She went partying every night now, drinking well past her limit and going home with blokes much more often. Then she met Nina. A sassy annoying prick who slapped the life back into her. She had stumbled across Clara after she had bought packets of pills and swallowed them all, lying barely conscious on the floor outside Nina's block of flats.

Nina helped her sober up, stay off the drugs, the alcohol, the partying and sleeping with strangers. Nina got her to go back to college, get her A levels and get into the same university as she was going to. She helped Clara sort her life out, and Clara was infinitely grateful for that.

Clara helped her dad after that, made him go back to work, interact with people, and even get a girlfriend. His girlfriend knew she would never replace Ellie, and never tried to. Instead she tried to be a friend to Clara and cheered up Dave.

Soon after that Clara planned to go travelling, and stayed with the Maitlands for a week, their mother very close with her mother, but in that week their mother died, and Clara knew she couldn't leave. She knew the pain of losing a mother, and couldn't let them go through that alone. So she stayed, became their nanny, and then she met the Doctor.

The Doctor knew all of this, and was proud of her.

And Clara was proud of how far she had come.

And to that day, Clara still has that doodle she did on the day she found out her mother had cancer. For her mother had been the one who said it.

The End.


End file.
